The (last) pope got something right...

(originally 2006)

Now I didn't have much time for Pope Benedict XVI, as I am an atheist and oppose the church's obsession with controlling people's bodies, its fundamental sexism and inability to adequately confront those of its employees who have violently and sexually abused many. 

However, the Pope is a powerful man, one of the most important in Christianity. For all of the flaws of Christianity, precious few Christians engage in violence to gain converts - while many may be offended by media and statements that attack the religion, very few engage in angry rampages of violence and there are precious few examples of modern day Christian militia out to do violence (though they are not unknown in Africa). The time for that is past.

His speech at the University of Regensburg in 2006 has upset Muslims across the world - they are, matching the stereotype that is hardening in the non-Muslim world, by protesting angrily, making anti-American and anti-Israeli statements, burning effigies of the Pope - in other words, acting like uncivilised, brutalised deranged thugs.  Criticism is not taken as a reason to offer rhetoric or reason in return, but anger and violence.

They have acted exactly the way that the Pope rejected. In his speech he said:

"Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death"

It is a lesson many Christians have taken, but which far too many Muslims have not.  They seek to enforce their religion with threats and violence, treating the mind as irrelevant, not seeking to convince with arguments based on merits, but on fear.

That is the fundamental difference today, that is oft-ignored by all too many, especially on the so-called progressive left.

In many Muslim countries, choosing to reject Islam (which you are assumed to have been born with) is a crime.  The last known execution for heresy of a Christian was in 1826 in Spain.  No non-Muslim majority countries have laws restricting religion.

So when Muslims wonder why their religion appears "singled out", then they need only look at the behaviour of their fellow believers. 

It isn't Christians, Jews or atheists that people fear waging violence int he name of religion. It isn't apparent in most Muslim countries that there is tolerance for those of other religions or no religion.

Anyone who thinks that the appropriate response to those who don't share their views is to threaten them with violence, is uncivilised and barbaric.  

Unfortunately for Muslims, it is people of their religion who far too often undertake this behaviour.  

They have every right to hold uncivilised barbaric views of others, but when they cross the line to threaten violence against those they disagree with, they should reasonably expect the full force of the law.

The right to religion is a right to practice your own beliefs - it is not a right to force others to submit to them, or to protect you from being offended.

Pity Haiti and the Vatican's hypocrisy

The earthquake has been devastating for a country beset for decades by corruption, kleptocracy, dictatorship and mysticism. It can only be hoped, and no doubt I expect private and government relief to come to this country with a history of being one of the most damned places in the Caribbean. It is ranked 156th by the CIA in per capita GDP, with the average of only US$800 per person per annum, alongside the likes of Cambodia and Chad, and the lowest in the Americas.

If ever there was a country that long needed rule of law,a culture of reason and respect for individual liberty and property rights, and the end of kleptocratic violent government, it would be Haiti.

However, whilst Catholic news services and the Vatican no doubt show true concern about conditions there, even though one questions why a military jet to fly a Bishop from Brazil does anyone any good (except a conscience), it is a shame that the Vatican can't truly be said to be morally consistent about Haiti at all. No, I'm not going to start on the idea that a loving omnipotent God might not strike the most poverty ridden countries with natural disasters like this (that's too obvious).

You see, in 1981 Mother Teresa of Calcutta went to visit Haiti. Not a big deal you might think? Well at the time Haiti was run by a criminal family called the Duvaliers. Papa Doc Duvalier ran the country with an iron fist, all media was controlled by the state and all broadcasting generated a North Korean style personality cult around the Duvalier clan. By 1981 he had been succeeded by his son Jean-Claude (Baby Doc). The Ton Ton Macoute acted as the personal army of the Duvaliers, and would abduct, torture and murder suspected opponents of the regime. Tens of thousands died at the hands of the regime. The Duvalier's meanwhile enriched themselves enormously by creaming off profits from government export monopolies, spending extravagant sums on themselves.

Did Mother Teresa go there to call for freedom, to end abuses of human rights, to call for the Duvaliers to share their ill gotten gains? No.

She received the Legion d'honneur award and praised the Duvaliers for their treatment of the poor. The picture above is of her holding the hand of Michele Duvalier, Baby Doc's wife, who endured the estimated US$3 million wedding not long before Teresa visited. She said of Michele Duvalier that she was "someone who feels, who knows, who wishes to demonstrate her love not only with words but also with concrete and tangible actions . . . the country vibrates with your life work". Vibrates with fear.

Mother Teresa provided open explicit moral support for this gang of thieving murderers. A gang who all up inflicted misery on Haiti for nearly 30 years. It was used as propaganda in Haiti, which has a strongly Catholic population. What more could the Duvaliers have wanted? How disgustingly evil was she in provide succuour to the despicable?

Pope John Paul II by contrast spent only a few hours there in March 1983 and damned the situation in the country.

Yet the Vatican still beatified her. Beatified one who gave warmth to some of Haiti's most evil rulers, who told complete lies about them, and who turned her back on the reality of the country.

No doubt Haitians will warmly welcome any assistance from Catholic charities in the coming days, weeks and months.

However, an appropriate footnote would be to strip Mother Teresa, or rather (her real name) Agnesë Bojaxhiu of her beatification, and to apologise for Haiti for her complicity in supporting the Duvalier regime. There are reports she received funds from the Duvaliers at the time as well. This should be investigated and if found true, it should be spent on providing humanitarian assistance for Haiti.

After all, it is one thing to ignore evil and say nothing, it is another to take a very long trip, to sup with evil, to receive an award, to praise it, to give it credit when it is dripping with the blood of those you purport to care for - and then for your employer to grant you one of its highest honours and respect.

Until then, the Vatican's claim for compassion is deeply darkened by its sympathy for one of its own who did great evil in embracing great evil.